Throwback Thursday — Wanna Know How Haunted Houses Got Started?

Greg Delange is busy building Terror Behind the Screen -- the largest, scariest and most high-tech haunted house in the Mid Columbia! That got me thinking, where did the idea of a haunted house attraction come from? They've been very popular for the past dozen years, but how old is the concept? You'll be surprised by the answer!

The idea of paying someone to be scared or see something gross goes back at least 200 years! Madam Tussaud's wax character museum in London has been a famous tourist attraction since she fled the French Revolution. Her first wax heads were made from death masks she took off French royalty beheaded. Her museum was famous for having grotesque oddities to see.

But that's not the "haunted house" kind of attraction we're talking about.